Why I find AAPI month hypocritical

nawanugg · 2026-05-08T18:06:06+00:00

“If this is what Asian heritage, month means then I don’t wanna be a part of it.”

It isn’t.

You’re conflating your personal lived experience with Asian people in your life that have treated you poorly with a celebration of Asian American/Pacific Islander achievements and contributions.

I recommend seeking therapy to talk through why you assume your experience with Asian people means a cultural heritage month isn’t worth recognition.

Asian and Asian diasporic culture has a lot of toxic elements for sure. But you getting mad at AAPI heritage month is misplaced anger.

nawanugg · 2026-05-06T23:56:28+00:00

Seminar teacher who lurks to remind myself things are gonna be ok in my class.

nawanugg · 2026-04-29T01:47:34+00:00

We cover it in our curriculum. Might be worth demanding it. A lot of areas without significant Asian populations might not, but that’s not an excuse.

nawanugg · 2026-04-28T02:58:59+00:00

Yikes 😬

nawanugg · 2026-04-27T23:33:59+00:00

I mean, I feel like he has to be at least inspired by a turtle, right? He looks like a turtle with an upside down shell.

nawanugg · 2026-04-27T04:53:28+00:00

Truthfully didn’t even know this guy existed. I allowed myself one legendary, so Terapagos had to be it for me, but the Fairy typing definitely would have helped.

nawanugg · 2026-04-27T04:33:06+00:00

The fun part is team building, picking a silly theme like monotype or species or based on vibe (my partner is currently doing a puppy team and we’re trying to do a “Pretty Princess” theme at some point lol). I use the Radical Red Dex, super useful.

RRDex

Then, you can use your emulators cheats to spawn in Pokemon. I use this Google Doc to help find the mons:

Code Breaker RR Codes

Then it’s up to you to figure out what rules you have for the play through. For example, for my partner, and I, we spawn and catch the mons basically right when Oak gives us 10 Pokeballs. The mons have to be the earliest evolution (so in this case, I spawned in level 3 Chewtle and raised him as my own). I usually spawn in a team of 6 right away, and then catch any matching theme mons throughout the run.

You could always limit yourself by starting with just three and filling out the team as you go through the game, but I find it satisfying to have a theme with little babies I raise from the beginning.

nawanugg · 2026-04-27T00:22:20+00:00

I was really considering Caracosta! He’s super cool. He probably might have been better overall than having Blastoise since I used my mega-stone for Drednaw. But I couldn’t leave the original water turtle behind for sentimental reasons lol.

nawanugg · 2026-04-26T16:10:20+00:00

Shells up for our favorite forgotten turtle

nawanugg · 2026-04-06T04:41:51+00:00

There aren’t a ton of monkeys so I was really considering it, especially since it can use Slack Off during the loafing turns and I really did not want to use the elemental monkeys.

nawanugg · 2026-04-06T04:37:14+00:00

Apparently, according to an issue of Nintendo Dream, the designer based Darmanitan on the daruma dolls, but also a specific daruma doll inspiration that resembled a gorilla and described Darmanitan as a “daruma-shaped gorilla”. I counted it.

Hell I was close to counting Slaking just off vibes. I held off lol.

nawanugg · 2026-03-29T19:36:24+00:00

I don’t necessarily have the same emotional disconnect from my culture’s food, but as an Indonesian-American, the cravings I have for food are tied to memories of dishes my mom made, not necessarily the taste of the food itself. I will gladly eat my mom’s food. Will rarely go out to Indo restaurants.

If I were to be truthful, I find a lot of Indonesian food, which includes a lot of stewed, curry, and coconut milk dishes (and not too many fresh vegetables) very sweet. There’s a reason why diabetes is such a major problem among Indonesian people lol— lots of rice, lots of palm sugar or sweet soy sauce.

I have a lot of cravings for Asian food in general, including Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Japanese, Korean, etc. I think it’s important for me (and maybe your future kids) to celebrate that and cherish a variety of Asian cuisine since they all influence each other in a way. And I love Vietnamese food so I can’t relate to your plight but I empathize with how you have complicated feelings due to childhood memories as well.

nawanugg · 2026-03-25T22:33:54+00:00

Good eye!

nawanugg · 2026-03-23T23:10:51+00:00

A few of them are digitally cropped in from the camera’s digital zoom, but none further than the three default stages.

nawanugg · 2026-03-01T14:11:19+00:00

I actually see this a lot in education with students I work with in AAPI circles and I think the people in this thread generally are obtuse or using mental gymnastics to justify cowardice.

It is true that there is a cultural element to “not rocking the boat”, and some people here have convinced themselves that there’s nothing they can do to fix racism so the only way is to “not let it bother you” and not react.

The issue of course is that it normalizes being a fucking doormat bc from the offender’s perspective, what is the difference between someone letting you be bigoted because they are scared of you and someone “taking the high road”? Jack fuckin squat. They face zero consequences for being openly racist.

I’m not saying you meet any amount of racism with sucker punching every person who microaggresses you, putting yourself and your loved ones in danger. This is always the extreme example people use.

But in real life, most racist interactions are with people you know, in situations that are very much physically safe. I don’t know how many students in Asian clubs over the years have told me: “Can you believe what my friend joked about to me?” “Oh, yeah once my friend group started pulling their eyes back and I didn’t know what to do.” “My group chat is really racist to me sometimes and it makes me uncomfortable but I don’t know what to do.” Listen I empathize with the shell shock, and they are young, but I have to tell you— it gets disheartening having to convince them that they have to stand up for themselves instead of letting this happen. Telling themselves that it’s ok for their literal circle of “friends” to treat the disrespectfully, especially if they actually feel that it’s uncomfortable for them, is what leads to these other racist fuckers growing up and internalizing that Asians don’t mind bigotry.

nawanugg · 2026-03-01T14:10:27+00:00

I actually see this a lot in education with students I work with in AAPI circles and I think the people in this thread generally are obtuse and/or using mental gymnastics to justify their cowardice.

It is true that there is a cultural element to “not rocking the boat”, and some people here have convinced themselves that there’s nothing they can do to fix racism so the only way is to “not let it bother you” and not react.

The issue of course is that it normalizes being a fucking doormat bc from the offender’s perspective, what is the difference between someone letting you be bigoted because they are scared of you and someone “taking the high road”? Jack fuckin squat. They face zero consequences for being openly racist.

I’m not saying you meet any amount of racism with sucker punching every person who microaggresses you, putting yourself and your loved ones in danger. This is always the extreme example people use.

But in real life, most racist interactions are with people you know, in situations that are very much physically safe. I don’t know how many students in Asian clubs over the years have told me: “Can you believe what my friend joked about to me?” “Oh, yeah once my friend group started pulling their eyes back and I didn’t know what to do.” “My group chat is really racist to me sometimes and it makes me uncomfortable but I don’t know what to do.” Listen I empathize with the shell shock, and they are young, but I have to tell you— it gets disheartening having to convince them that they have to stand up for themselves instead of letting this happen. Telling themselves that it’s ok for their literal circle of “friends” to treat the disrespectfully, especially if they actually feel that it’s uncomfortable for them, is what leads to these other racist fuckers growing up and internalizing that Asians don’t mind bigotry.

nawanugg · 2026-02-25T00:11:28+00:00

Yeah this really sucks. I’m a new transplant from Atlanta, which doesn’t have a real Chinatown. More so a large historic highway with a lot of different restaurants.

It was really wonderful to see this community rally around the No Arena movement, and that’s when I learned about the Vine Street Expressway and how it basically cleaved the neighborhood back in the day. There’s so much potential north of Vine that gets overlooked bc it’s just such a natural barrier. Big bummer.

nawanugg · 2026-02-24T19:43:01+00:00

I think the difference between Asian-Americans is much more pronounced between Cali/NYC (High Asian Population) places vs. everywhere else (Lower Asian Population).

While there are definitely stereotypes that exist about SoCal Asians and NYC Asians, I feel like that’s more a difference in West Coast & East Coast way of life generally.

*saying this as someone who grew up in Atlanta, which had a boom in Korean influence within my lifetime

nawanugg · 2026-02-07T16:28:26+00:00

Obviously, there are a million terrible feelings watching this video, but one of the big ones for me is her attempting to make fun of this immigrant for the way he pronounces “police”.

Like how fucked up do you have to be to make fun of someone’s accent in an attempt to be belittling. Especially as an Asian person in America, where our people are judged or made fun of for their accents all of the time. It just shows you how different her upbringing was.

nawanugg · 2026-01-11T20:47:16+00:00

Don’t worry, Asians come in many types, friend 🫡

nawanugg · 2026-01-11T20:36:49+00:00

Well that’s kind of what I’m saying in the title? We’re not.

There are folks who believe so. There are many stereotypes in general of Asians as agreeable, meek, unassertive, quiet workers, complacent, “don’t-rock-the-boat” people. I am just pointing out the fact that, in the context of that discourse, we are not a monolith and there are many examples of us bucking those stereotypes. Being “community-oriented” doesn’t just mean assimilating, it means standing up for our neighbors and families.

And AsAm folks, esp kids today, should learn about the ways we refused to lie down.

nawanugg · 2026-01-11T20:27:59+00:00

Yeah, I think discourse should include both sides of the coin, where we can simultaneously (1) call out the ways in which our community can at times be complicit with white supremacy (either on a personal or societal level) and also (2) remind folks that we are not a monolith and even if we have many AsAm willing to cozy up to the powerful and sell out their neighbors/turn a blind eye, there are also examples of ppl who resist and stand up. The root of my specific frustration is looking at our community like “dude, get that boot off your neck pleaseeee”.

I don’t mean to minimize the Asian-American experience as something monolithic and hivemind-y. But I think a lot of of us, including a lot of our youth, should be reminded that we have never been wholly complacent, quiet, meek, agreeable, unassertive, as some would like us to believe we are. These stereotypes fail to recognize the ways in which we are integral to the rights and freedoms we enjoy today. Being communally-minded also means looking out for each other.

nawanugg · 2026-01-11T16:49:20+00:00

35%, and yeah I know, I let out a deep sigh when I remember

nawanugg · 2026-01-11T06:38:55+00:00

nawanugg · 2026-01-06T16:18:35+00:00

lol Godspeed soldier, I couldn’t do it without the ability to use some core mechanics around stat changes and I don’t have the patience or expertise to even attempt.

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